I drove up to the town of North Bend yesterday. It’s right off I-90, and probably only about a 45 minute drive to Seattle, but it feels like it’s a different world. It’s a small town, with the beautiful Mt Si towering over it.

Nothing like a field of cows and flowers to make one’s day.

While I was there I saw four para-gliders (right? I think that’s what they were) coming down out of the sky. From where I stood, one landed in a cow pasture on one side of the trail, and another landed in the school’s soccer field on the other side of the trail.

I came across this tree and it’s tree stump friend while hiking today. The bottom tree was cut a long time ago, as one can see from how old the growing tree is! I loved how it’s roots reach down the sides of the old tree stump, almost like it’s hugging its old friend.

That’s love.

I recently came across this website: Inspiration Through Art. It’s a non-profit organization working with families of kids with illnesses. They pair each “hero” and their family with a local photographer to have a nice set of portraits taken. The photographers volunteer their time. I would love to do this, though they want you to have at least a year of “portrait related photography experience” which I still lack. (I’ll get there though, just you wait!)

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful Memorial Day Weekend! Well, anyway, it’s beautiful here in Western Washington!

I’m sitting here at my desk listening to the sounds of the neighborhood – children yelling, adults greeting each other, and dogs barking. We live right next to the “Residence Center” which houses one of the complex’s pools.

I went up to Rizal Park in Seattle last night to get some long exposure shots, and I wanted to share a few more with you.

So here we go!

We weren’t the only ones out there

Vertical view

The beautiful sunset

If Seattle suffered a nuclear meltdown, it might look something like this

Rizal Park is perfectly situated up on a hill overlooking the convergence of I-5 and I-90 with the Seattle skyscrapers behind.

I’ve been wanting to get up there to take the quintessential Seattle shot since I first heard of it, and today I finally did! I am working on two different challenges this week that have to do with long exposure times, which is why I was motivated to go this week in the first place, but I had to share one with you today anyway!

We arrived just as the sun was setting over the Olympic Mountain Range, making them look like they were on fire. (Which of course I took loads of photos of. Those to come tomorrow) Then we walked into the park a bit further to find the best shot to capture the city lights.

Today is another WordCount Blogathon Theme Day! The topic is “if I started blogging today I would…” What would I do differently?

I haven’t been a blogger for very long, barely 4 months at this point.

I started my blog, on something like a whim, when I felt that I needed a better place to share my photos and get feedback about them than what I was getting from Facebook. I can’t remember how I came to WordPress, but I like it here. At least for now, WordPress offers everything I need from a blog site.

So I’ve been thinking about it. What would I have done differently?

The most important thing I would change is that I would definitely mark my work as my own, from the beginning. I watermark everything I post now, but I didn’t start out doing that. As far as I know no one stole anything from me, but that was a pointless risk to take. I started watermarking my work when my sister encouraged me to do so, at least a month after I’d started blogging.

It seems so obvious now, but I had little idea of how to actually go about the whole blogging thing, and how easy it is to steal and pass off work as one’s own.

Michelle at WordCount compiled a list of newbie mistakes to avoid. You can check them out on her website, HERE

(Sorry, I couldn’t make this photo apply to this topic!)

Anyway, since I started, I’ve started following a number of other blogs on similar topics, both photographers near my level and ones who have been in the business for a years, as well as non-photographer bloggers! All of these have been fun and interesting to read, and many have inspired me to try new and different things!

For all the bloggers out there, what would YOU do differently, if you started now? Do you have any good tips or advice for a fairly new blogger like me?